Creative Writing Competition 2021 - Winners and Highly Commended City of Rockingham
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City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021 Winners and Highly Commended
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021 1. Chloe Hosking, Unghosted 2. Jason Vettoor, Wipeout 3. Rosanne Dingli, Young Franz 4. Nadia Heisler Walpole, How to Write Your Own Eulogy 5. Anya Cally, Undefined 6. Esther Kipchumba, Andy 7. Sam Cecins, Flavourless 8. David Firby, Rainy Daze 9. Shannon Meyerkort, Anti-metamorphosis 10. Nicki Blake, Children of the Mountain City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021
Unghosted
Everything here, including my car, was going along just fine, ‘til the
saltwater got in all the graves. Then my old Gran, who we dead and buried a long
time ago, when I was just a girl, she came back up out of the dirt. Well, I can’t
say I was glad to see her again. She stuck her fingers in the light sockets and all
my power went out. It’s been bread and butter for dinner ever since.
My granddaughter, her name’s Lizzy, she said, “Nan, I told you this would
happen. You voted wrong and now the water’s come up.”
I always tell her, we can’t be saving the environment until the economy’s
fixed. I say this under my breath. Wells women have a temper like the sea breeze.
Sometimes it blows over and sometimes it blows you away. Anyway, I don’t
really see what voting has to do with this mess. It’s the erosion that’s the problem
and really. Whose idea was it to put the cemetery down there near the shore
anyway? Only other thing down that way is the surf club and by gosh who cares
if that’s underwater.
Now Lizzy’s mother, Katherine, she hasn’t come back up and good news
that is. I suppose she must be buried somewhere dry, over there on the mainland.
“Doesn’t it feel weird, having your Gran in the toaster?” asked Lizzy. I
tolc her no, not really, she’s not all that much the same now, what with being
mostly transparent and gliding around like a fish with boiled eyes.
***
Now, sad thing was, it seemed Gran was here to stay. I went to drive to
the shops, just to buy myself a bite more bread to eat, but she’d crawled into the
petrol hole and was looking out at me with one miserly spirit eye and those nasty
clawing spirit fingers that feel so cold when they run down your neck at night on
their way from your electric fan to your lamp bulb.
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City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021Unghosted
“Gran!” I told her, loudly, “a woman’s got to eat!”. She just looked at me
slowly and next thing her eye’s all gone but my car still won’t start. So I set off
for a walk to the shops for the first time in twenty years. To get there I had to go
past my neighbour’s place, and he was sitting outside on the porch, looking at his
lawn like a woebegone sea lion, all whiskery and down-mouthed.
My neighbour’s name is Tom and poor old bloke, he thought his wife was
gone five years ago and here she was back again, clogging up his lawnmower and
making the grass grow long.
We wandered along, side by side, up the path into town and as we walked,
the nine a.m. plane passed overhead. I’ve never got on one myself. Nasty things,
planes. Of course, Katherine Wells would tell you differently– if she could, that is.
“I guess that’s too high for ghosts to get at,” said Tom.
“But what are we going to do, Tom?” I asked, and he said, “Well… I
reckon I just have to let the yard go. It was getting a bit much to manage
anyway.”
“Are you going to sell that lawnmower?” I asked him.
“Who around here will buy a lawnmower now?” he said, and he was right.
Everywhere around this island were people who couldn’t boil a kettle, let alone
pull-start a noisy lawn-eating petrol-guzzler. Well, that’s what Lizzy would call it
anyway.
After some time my knees were creaking and down the hill we could see
tombstones sticking out the water like old grey teeth. The spirits only evacuated
six days before but already the shop shelves were looking skint.
We talked to Mim, who owns the shop. She said none of the boats can get
off the island on account of all the angry elders and even that Jones baby, who
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City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021Unghosted
died a hundred years ago but is back now, mewling in the dinghy outboards. Let
alone the ferry. Well! And no new supplies could come in either.
I was reminded of the day Katherine and I quarrelled last. The crossing
was a salt millpond, but if the waves had been up she might be here now too,
filling my television with her ghost-plasma.
Tom and I walked back up the hill to my little house and there was Lizzy.
“Nan,” she said, looking a picture in her old blue overalls, even though she’s cut
her lovely hair short again. “We need to start a garden.”
“Oh gosh,” I said. “Why’d we want to do a thing like that? God gave us
fingernails so we could keep them looking clean.”
Lizzy was not having a bar of it. She was ‘hangry’ I guess, as the young
people say.
So the very next day we and half the town were out in our front gardens hewing
up the nice green grass just to plant some vegetables. All I could think was, what
a pity the ocean had to rise up now, when the rains had just greened up my lawn.
***
A few days after we’d finished all the tinned beans, a boat arrived full of
men in suits. They came from the mainland to sort out all our problems. They
got almost all the way in to shore before the outboards cut and they had to swim
like sodden penguins, little briefcases balanced atop their heads. They spoke to
Mim because they thought she was the important one around here.
“Mim,” they said, “we haven’t heard from you in five days,” and what did
Mim say? “Well of course you haven’t, the bloody ghosts are in all the telephone
holes.”
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City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021Unghosted
“Well, Mim,” said the roundest one, importantly. “We should sort out
these here ghosts. Why don’cha show ’em to us?” It’s Tom who told me all this.
He was in store for another yarn with Mim when the children raced in to share
news of oversized seabirds on the approach.
“Those spirits got scurried out of their graves because the water came up,”
Mim told the men, “and the only way to fix things is to get the water back down
again. Spirits don’t like salt.”
Then, said Tom, the men were very quick to explain that the water is the
same height it’s always been, and even if it isn’t there’s nothing they can do to fix
it on account of it not being their fault. And, also, there’s no such things as ghosts
anyway.
So Mim told them, “Well, you just hop back on your boat and get off
home then, there’s nothing you can do here,” and her Dad made a point of
walking right through the man with the blackest suit and sticking his rude finger
up the man’s left nostril. The men pretended they couldn’t see anything, but when
their boat wouldn’t start Tom’s brother’s son did watch them have a little shout at
Miss Molly Clarke, permanent age seventeen, who was sitting in the engine with
her toes through the fuel line.
The men swam back in to shore again, by then very limp, almost crawling
up the beach. Mim put them up in the room above the shop. We saw them on the
balcony that afternoon. They were standing there holding their mobile telephones
above their heads and shouting a bit, doing some kind of special dance to appease
the spirits, I guess.
That isn’t going to work, I could’ve told them. There’s no way to flush
them out once they’ve a mind to settle somewhere. Our island was awfully quiet
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by then, no radio or TV and no music except old Billy who played piano in the
town hall. All the young folk, Lizzy included, started to get a new interest in that
old-time music. A few of them even asked me to teach them to jive.
Well, I guess we learned not to mind so much about the spirits or
even having to grow things and walk everywhere, but then we found ourselves
three weeks below sea level and running out of places to put all the men in suits
who kept floating on over here and multiplying. So one night, after a dance, we
all sat around in the town hall and made noises so that others could tell we were
thinking hard.
“I quite like them,” said Tom in his unhurried way.
“We all know that, Tom,” said Mim sharply. “But we’re getting hungry
and we can’t eat bureaucrats. They’re too leathery.”
Lizzy lay on the floor in a dancing dress that once belonged to her mother.
I was reminded that she had wanted to leave again herself soon, on another of
those world tours she likes so much. Things must have been delayed, I suppose.
But, anyway, Lizzy always returns home eventually. Even when she was a baby,
she was returned to me.
“We never needed barges when I was a lad,” said Tom, heavily. “We just
grew our food and sometimes those fishermen would sail over and sell us olives.”
Lizzy sat up with a start, and grabbed the arm of Tom’s brother’s son,
Jeremy, his name is.
***
And so the next morning we trudged to the dock with barrows of
telephones and toasters and the like, so as to lump the ancestors all in one place.
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The smallest barge was rigged with tarpaulins. Tom sat slumped on the
dock, chuffed but too worn out to carry even a small barrow-load. I sidled down
beside him. I’d quite enjoyed getting to know Tom, those quiet weeks.
Once we all got there, the wharf was swathed in fog and the whole
translucent mess shuddered a bit as we lined the dock, throwing our ghost-broken
rubbish across to the barge, which began to sit frightfully low in the salt water.
“Too bad, you lot,” called Lizzy to the barge. “Pull your cold bloody
fingers out and remember this is your doing too!” All the foggy miasma of spirits
wobbled a little bit and a strange not-noise blew out of it.
“It’s what’s going on out there that’s the problem,” said Lizzy. “There’s
petrol engines and plastic bottles and all sorts of things that make the oceans grow
and starve at the same time.”
The cloudy mob shifted, and the average age of the island climbed steeply
as our young, our adventurous and foolhardy, boarded the barge with oars and
loud mouths.
I nearly lost sight of Lizzy in the muddle of mist and rubbish and
bureaucrats, but then a short mess of brown hair, no longer than a boy’s, emerged
halfway up the mast and I saw her untangling tarpaulin from a line.
“Bye, Lizzy,” I shouted.
“I’ll be back, Nan,” she shouted back, as the sails filled into seashells or
gull wings, except blue and smudged with grease stains. The whole pile bobbed
out, the bald solid penguin men on top and translucent eyeballs peering out from
underneath. And Lizzy, a smudge herself in the distance.
“Bye Gran,” I murmured, waving. I’ll miss her a bit, but it’s like Lizzy
says, the mainland won’t be done any harm by a visit from our lot.
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***
Two months after the barge took all our young people and ghosts away, I
stood out in my vegetable garden, eating sweet peas right off the plants. Tom was
walking down the hill in the distance, and everything was very quiet.
I wondered at the time, and looked up at the sun. My neck cricked
violently and I realised the morning was almost over. I’d been outside for hours.
There was a little hole in my chest, right between my lungs. Something
was missing from the day.
“Ay!” Tom called out to me. I looked up and he was pointing at the sky.
“The plane didn’t go over today!” We laughed. I thought of Lizzy, and where
she might be, and how she might come home.
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City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021WIPEOUT
WIPEOUT
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Chapter 1
Andrew Jacobson
I don’t remember hitting my head. I do, however, remember exploding a car.
The smoke bomb was supposed to stink up my crummy science teacher’s rickety old Ford,
not set the entire contraption on fire. But it did.
So here I am, in a hospital room, with a killer headache, hoping that past twenty-four hours
never happened.
Mum and Dad are somewhere to my right. Arguing, as usual. I must have dozed off. They
sure were not here the last time I opened my eyes.
Time to face the music.
It takes several blinks for my eyes to adjust to harsh lighting. I can see them now, both in
their designer suits and expensive leather briefcases. Typical of them to bring work to their
son’s hospital room.
Snippets of conversation reaches me.
“Suspension is possible…”
“Not enough proof…”
“Can’t keep backing Andrew…”
“It’s arson. Police will be here…”
Police? Surely a small fire shouldn’t involve the police? And what do they mean that they
can’t keep backing me up? They are high-end lawyers, filthy rich! My brain starts to work at
twice the speed.
My dad runs a hand through his neatly combed hair. “You know what would have been
convenient, that fall should have wiped out his-”
He pauses. A very long pause. I can basically see the cogs and gears working away in his
lawyer brain. His eyes widen.
More frantic whispers. “Memory loss after head trauma…so common…”
Mum gets the same excited look on her face.
In a perfectly choregraphed move, they both turn to me, unholy glee on their faces.
“Amnesia,” they chant in unison.
Huh!
In case you don’t know me, I am Andrew Jacobson. AJ to most. And looks like I am about to
add misleading law to my growing list of felonies.
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021WIPEOUT
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“Don’t slip up, Andrew. You need to make everyone believe that you have lost your
memories. No more detentions. No more calls to Principal’s office. Keep a low profile. Until
we come up with a plan to sort this mess.”
Mum’s words in the car this morning vibrate through my brain.
Easier said than done.
Pretending to be nice to these dimwits is harder than it looks.
For one, every single one of them hates me. For good reason. For the past two years, I made
it my mission to make their lives miserable. Why? I have no respect for a bunch of nerds.
They have done their fair share to make feel like a worm when the word got out that I am
dyslexic. There were only two options before me then: Fight or flight. I decided to fight.
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Chapter 2
Dr Sellini
Teaching science used to be my passion. Moulding young minds used to excite me.
After forty long years, the magic is gone beyond redemption.
Sure, I still love science, but its kids like Andrew Jacobson who make me wonder about my
career path.
His latest stint dabbing in arson. Insurance Investigation. I just want to give up and go home.
Unfortunately, my mortgage does not give me that choice.
As I walk into the room, the class falls silent.
I pull out my laptop and begin the roll.
Halfway through, my nightmare walks into the room. A4 size paper clutched in his hand.
“Late again Andrew?”
He looks at me blankly. “Excuse me? Is this,” he reads out loud,” Ummm.. Dr Sell-me’s
class?”
The class erupts in laughter.
My death stare takes care of it.
Word around staffroom is that Andrew has lost his memory. Head trauma. I do not think I am
that unlucky.
I will get the truth out of him. One way or other.
“Whatever trick you’re playing boy, it won’t work.”
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021WIPEOUT
“I’m sorry sir,” he says, “I don’t understand what you mean.”
Is that a flicker of smirk?
Excited chatter. Gasps.
“Enough. Take a seat,” I growl.
I don’t miss the micro second pause as he approaches Nathan. His best mate. Partner in
crime.
He finds the last empty spot.
Andrew is not fooling me. I’ve been a teacher long enough to see he is faking.
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Parker Mulligan
Everyone’s laughing at me, Parker. Because I can’t read. Can you help me?
Memories of Andrew swirl inside me as I watch Andrew walk along the strip-lit school
corridor, looking meek. Kids give him a wide berth.
The whole school is buzzing with the rumour that he lost his memory. Some say he is faking
it to get out of the Sellini scandal. I don’t know what to believe.
Seeing Andrew makes me feel oddly sad. We used to be friends. Sort of.
That was before he turned Hulk and decided to smash those of us who belong to nerd
community.
Hand on heart, I can swear that I have never once insulted him.
My thoughts interrupt when I see Callan run into him. I watch in horror as their bodies
collide. Books fly. iPad hits ground.
Callan steps back, eyes filling with tears.
Here it comes.
The punch. The pain.
To my shock, Andrew does not do a thing.
He simply picks his books off the floor and walk away, mumbling an awkward sorry.
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Chapter 3
Dr Sellini
Three weeks since the incident. Nobody believes me.
Lack of evidence makes the arson investigators think I set fire to the car myself.
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021WIPEOUT
They know I’m a chemistry teacher, and the cause of fire are items regularly found in a
chemistry lab. And the worst part is, they think I did it for the insurance money.
Overworked school teacher. Hefty mortgage. Closer to retirement.
To an arson investigator, I suppose it makes sense.
They don’t even hear me out when I tell them it’s Andrew.
Security camera and time stamp place him near the scene that night. But the trail goes cold.
Andrew, for his worth, is a great actor. Oscar worthy.
He is staying away from trouble.
To those who observe, he is giving a stellar performance.
To a point even I have begun to wonder if he really has amnesia.
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Andrew Jacobson
I see him again, Parker, the nerd with thick rimmed glasses. He is sitting beside the water
fountain, nursing a bump the size of fifty cent coin on his forehead. Comprehension dawns.
Parker would have leaned down to have a drink from the fountain and someone, most
probably Nate would have given him a shove.
My normal response- a guffaw at Parker’s misery. But today I do not feel like it. For one, he
looks so miserable. Without meaning, my legs move forward. As I lean down to give him a
hand, I see his eyes are red from crying.
“I’m sorry,” the words are out of my mouth before I can swallow them.
He waves a hand vaguely in the air as I settle him onto the bench in the quiet area. “You
didn’t do it.”
A few kids passing by shoot panicked looks, seeing me with Parker. Their animosity shocks
me.
When I speak, my voice is unusually subdued. “But I have. Hurt you. Like before.”
He looks surprised. “So, you do remember.”
Ah...don’t slip up, AJ.
“No. But it’s pretty easy to figure that I was not exactly popular around here.”
Yeah man...you were nothing but a bully. Parker doesn’t say it, but his expression says it all.
“Why don’t you fight back?” I cannot believe these words are coming out of my mouth. As I
say it, my eyes roam to the skinny arms, tightly clenched fingers, wide-eyed innocent look on
his baby face. Parker is prime picking for any bully.
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021WIPEOUT
“Guess people who bully me are trying to make themselves feel good by making me feel
bad.”
I smile cynically. “Jeez, dude. Who taught you such baloney? They hurt because it’s fun.
Plain and simple. And you Parker are an easy target.”
No eye contact. Just a sniffle. “What do I do then?” A soft murmur. Almost heartbreaking. At
least enough break my black heart.
“I think I have an idea.”
He looks at me, suspicion and surprise in his eyes.
I really think there is something wrong with my brain.
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Chapter 4
Andrew Jacobson
Is it just me, or does everyone seem to like me more now?
Ever since Parker incident a few weeks back, things have shifted in my favour.
Parents. Smiles all around.
Even teachers. Less scowls and more nods.
Except Nate and the gang.
Now that I’m helping out the “wimpy kids”, they think I’m their enemy.
To be honest, even though this started out as a scam, I kind of like being the protector of the
weak.
Most back off when they see me, feeling hurt that I’d abandoned them. I shrug it off though.
Playing referee to this match between Team nerds and Team old buddies is fun, but
exhausting.
Who knew a spot of amnesia was all I needed to turn my life around.
I pause.
Actually, there is one more fence I need to mend.
Dr. Sellini.
My thoughts circle back to the conversation I had overheard between mum and dad last night.
“I feel sorry for the guy. Looks like he will go in for insurance fraud. Plus the heavy fines.”
As much as I hate Sellini, I never intended for this to happen. My prank might cost him his
career, his life.
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021WIPEOUT
PA speaker crackles to life, jarring my thoughts. “Andrew Jacobson, report to the Principal’s
office.”
This can’t be good.
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Arson Investigator Jefferson Davis
I want to believe Dr. Sellini is telling the truth. I really do. But when there is so much
evidence stacked against him, it is hard to tell anyone otherwise.
I look around the room. Dr Sellini, the social worker, Andrew’s parents. Everyone on edge.
Time to put this case to rest.
The door opens and in walks Andrew. Lanky, tall for a fourteen-year-old. Blue eyes wide
with innocence.
He doesn’t look scared as I thought he would be. Confused maybe.
I look at him, “Hi Andrew, I am Arson Investigator Jefferson Davis. Please take a seat. I have
a few questions for you.”
He sits next to his parents as I launch into the usual spiel. Why were you there? How did you
get hit? What did you see? He did not answer much. But then again, the kid had a concussion.
Knowing the attempt has been futile, I sigh.
The social worker intercepts. “No one is accusing you, Andrew. We know you have injured
yourself and you may not remember much, but-”
“It was me,” he says, words so soft that I think it’s my imagination.
His father looks panicked, “He hit his head, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Andrew, now defiant, shakes his head. “Stop standing up for me, dad. I want to own up to my
mistake. I did it!”
Now his father is sweating. Sellini looks ready to burst from excitement. Well this sure
makes my case difficult.
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Andrew Jacobson
It’s been a week since the trial, and my parents are still mad at me.
“Why would you say that?”
“We had to pay a huge fine!”
But I don’t care. I ended up getting a caution from the judge. And better yet, I saved an
innocent person from a fine, possibly, jail. It’s funny, during those first weeks, I didn’t even
care how it would affect my teacher. I only thought about myself. But now, I’ve changed. I
hang out with Parker. I help kids who get bullied. I’m even acing my tests!
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021WIPEOUT Mr Sellini is happy now that he got a new car, generously bought by the Jacobson family. He still hates me. But not as much as before. I now have a reading specialist helping me out every week. I have made up with Nate and the gang. Life is good. All because I wiped out. ------------------------------------------------------xxx------------------------------------------------------ City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021
He thought about it again, and then some more. It was perplexing.
It was a numbing mystery, a mystery couched in the words Boy, ungrateful
boy. In the words Cold unfeeling boy. In the words Go away, boy!
Moth
Butterflies
He rolled over, pulled blankets and crumpled sheet over his head; pulled
random inexplicable mind-words back in out of the chilly room and under
bedclothes that had started to take on his smell.
Butterflies? Three sisters, three. One had to live differently, when one was by
oneself. Vastly differently. Alone in a room, for a start. Now if Georg and Heinrich
had lived, it might have been ... it might be another story. But no, no. No more
boys. No boys; they were dead. When babies went, it was sadder, he could tell,
than if they perished when they grew up. Would he die when he grew up, or soon?
Mutti and Vater were always at the factory. He could not ask them. He could
not hold his mother’s hand and look into her eyes and form his words. ‘Mutti,
Mutti – listen. Will I grow into a big man?’
1
Young Franz
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021Asking Nanny Lange was useless. What did she know about death? Nothing.
She knew nothing except how to fold nappies, how to warm milk, how to take
down the hems of an outgrown pair of trousers. She was slow, and ugly, and
uneducated, not like Mutti. But she was strong, and took him piggyback all over
the house when the girls had a nap. She was not offended when they asked her to
cook as well as mind the children.
‘You never nap.’ Her accusation was practical, not resentful. She was full of
truths and facts, that nanny. Facts and figures derived from her narrow life, which
she lived mildly, armed with a wooden spoon in one hand, and a clockwork rabbit
in the other.
The children took to her instruction wrought of ignorance much better than
to that of their intelligent but taciturn governess. Taciturn? Brutal.
Teaching came naturally to Nanny Lange. ‘See? Twelve potatoes and two
carrots for four people. Fifteen potatoes, three carrots and three onions for six.
Count, Franz – count them. Count them, then please take a nap?’
He didn’t nap because he slept in on the long cold mornings, after listening
to rustling and mumbling when his parents prepared to leave the house. He would
go back to sleep and wake to noise in the street, or to cold silence before the girls
fought over ribbons or cried over their Haferbrei or slammed enamel porridge
bowls and jangled spoons on the scarred kitchen table. Three little sisters. Their
breakfast was a long messy affair. Valli, Elli, Ottla; so different. So the same.
Anyone sensible would stay in bed until they were done. Until their chins were
wiped and their hands washed. Until they sat with slates and chalk and picture
2
Young Franz
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021books and listened to Fraulein Schmidt rounding her vowels and slitting her
consonants. The front room and its oval table held them captive until lunch was
laid in the kitchen and Nanny Lange and the maid with bad skin, who came in
from goodness knew where, waited. Hands knotted in voluminous rough-dried
kitchen towels, they watched the girls eat.
‘Franz, what will you eat for lunch?’
‘Cheese. Bread. Bread. Sausage. Cheese. Um. Cheese.’
Laughter rocked chairs, swung the lantern over the table, set the pot-laden
rack above the range ringing. ‘If you don’t form sentences properly Fraulein will
lock you up.’ The girls hiccupped with mirth. More accusations from the mouths
of babes, even the sweet little pursed mouth of Ottla, who was – if you questioned
him closely and in private – his favourite. They repeated the threat. Fraulein will
lock you up.
Fraulein Schmidt will put you away under the stairs and lock the door. She
will! She will!
How long had he spent under those stairs? Smells of mould and mildew,
odours of ancient newspaper, mouse droppings, winter boots, umbrellas furled
with great dirty drops still in their folds. Smells of handkerchiefs and orange peel
and apple cores forgotten in coat pockets ... they were caught forever in his
nostrils. There were enough jokes about long noses in this family. Enough ridicule
and humiliation about red hands, long noses and bent backs.
3
Young Franz
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021Words crowded in when he was in the dark, crouched in the stair cupboard,
fighting for space among raincoats and walking sticks. ‘Stand up straight! Comb
your hair! Study your spelling!’
Spelling. Words. Hair. Nose.
Spelling
Spelling
Spelling
‘Cheese. Bread.’
‘Ha ha! You will never be good with words. It’s under the stairs with you for
the afternoon! Ha ha.’
It was dark there, dark. In the winter it was an icebox, and his toes curled
and froze. In the summer, it was close and scarier than ever; an airless place where
gasps and sobs faded to scared shallow inhalations. Cockroaches crackled over old
newspaper, under and in between creased pages, so he rolled into a ball, with
arms over his head, lips tightly shut. If a cockroach crawled into your mouth, you
turned into an insect. The governess told him that.
‘If you read properly, if you spell your words right, if you pronounce your
esses well, you will never be punished again. You won’t grow thin brown wings
and antennae. Hear me? Do you hear, Franz?’
But he was pushed often, with sickening regularity, into that small space
where the monsters were bigger than him, where the cockroaches were huge.
‘That’ll teach him.’ She dusted thin hands, wiped them down the sides of
that stiff black skirt and looked away from the maid’s eyes. ‘Don’t ask. Don’t even
4
Young Franz
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021ask. I cannot stand your pitiful questions. What did he do? What did he do?’ She
mimicked cruelly, avoiding the maid’s numb look.
She locked him away, and that night Vater boomed and blustered, pointed
his finger and brought downstairs his razor leather, thumping down landing to
landing. There was no escaping them – it was one or the other, but if he had to
choose between one castigator and another, it was plain which of them he feared
more. Would a friendly look, a nice word, perhaps a smile, be so alien to his
father’s concept of how to raise a boy?
‘See this? See this? Look here, boy.’
Where was he supposed to look?
Raving, ranting; his father’s thunderous voice bellowed. ‘Do you want it
stroked along your backside, son? If Fraulein Schmidt tells me once more you slur
your words and fail at spelling you will feel it across your poor thin measley
weasley pitiful awful bony bottom.’
Mutti was sweet and quiet, Mutti was consolation and relief. But Vater
reigned over them all with a resounding voice, a balled fist, and a cruel tongue.
What chance did he have against words like those?
He was only small, and his sisters were even tinier. Well, if truth were to be
told, they would soon all three be taller, and more robust. No one, though, none of
them, would have a bigger nose.
‘Stop snivelling! Stand straight. Stretch! Try to touch the ceiling with the top
of your head.’
5
Young Franz
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021Sometimes it was hard to think. Sometimes it was a misery, a mystery, a
puzzle to recall who abused him more. Who of them had said what. Which of
them had scolded harder. Vater and Fraulein Schmidt. Fraulein Schmidt and
Vater. Ah.
oOo
Late afternoon. Cold, freezing late afternoon. In the cupboard under the stairs
again; for spelling Schmetterling wrong. He crossed it out and wrote Motte
instead. Butterfly, moth – was there any important difference? Why was it always
insects? Is a moth an insect? A butterfly metamorphoses from a caterpillar. Is a
caterpillar an insect?
‘Of course it is! Of the order Lepidoptera. Go! Write all those words fifty
times each, now. Write, you lazy beggar.’ Fraulein Schmidt never looked him in
the eye. She pointed at him with one of her sharp pencils. She wiped her hands on
her stiff skirt and pulled her thin mouth down at the corners.
He disgusted her.
He made her spit her esses.
Writing on a new sheet of paper, scratching with pens and pencils, whose
points broke too often, he wrote and wrote.
Moth
Moth
Butterfly
6
Young Franz
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021Lepidop
Lepidoptera
Catterpiller Caterpillar
Moth
Butterfly
Caterpillar
Cockroach
Moth
Franz Kafka
Franz
Franz Kafka
Cokroach Cockroach
Cockroach
My name is
Moth
Cockroach
Kafka
After writing a word fifty times, it looked strange, and he started to doubt
the spelling. Fear knotted his stomach. Knitted his fingers. His head did not rise
until he sensed it was dark outside.
oOo
7
Young Franz
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021Dark, dark. He pulled at blankets and sheet.
Dark, darker, darkest; spell it right. Spell the words correctly.
Dark. Light. Light. It streamed in through a chink in the curtains and struck
the chest of drawers, leaving a slant on the carpet. A gold slant. Dust motes
danced in the air. In the air in his bedroom. It was no longer cold; something had
changed.
‘Franz.’ He spoke to himself. ‘Franz, get out of bed. Start your day.’
Sometimes, it was the only soft voice he heard all day. The little girls shrieked and
laughed. Nanny Lange sang rhymes in a shrill out-of-tune monotone. Fraulein
Schmidt scolded and shouted. Vater, home from the factory, bellowed and howled
all evening.
He rolled out of bed. How many lines would he have to write today? How
many hours would be spent in the cupboard under the stairs? Up, up, out.
Staggering to the window to pull at the curtains, he glimpsed something strange
and took one step back. One step.
One step and there he was, reflected in the full-length mirror on its swivel
stand.
Something had changed.
He had changed.
He was not a boy of ten.
Or eight.
He was not a cockroach.
Or a butterfly.
8
Young Franz
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021Or a caterpillar.
He was not a lazy beggar.
Or a moth.
He looked at himself in utter surprise. He was a grown man. Not tall, but
fully grown, an adult. A man, a man. What a transformation.
He had not died a child.
He ran a hand through hair that even squashed from sleep, looked like it
would grey soon. He ran fingers over his chin, and felt a night’s growth of beard.
‘You transmute into a grown man, but your childhood never leaves you.’
ooooOOOoooo
1737 words
9
Young Franz
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021How to Write Your Own Eulogy
I walked towards the deserted historical building suspecting it had all been a prank. I
reminded myself Sundays are for sleeping in, for cooking pancakes-in-too-much-
butter, for Netflix binging, for making love – not that I have a partner, but still – to go
to church – not that God cares, but still – or, at least, for drinking beers with Adam at
the local. Instead, there I was in East Fremantle at 6.45am sharp on the thirteenth
Sunday of the year, as specified in the orientation e-mail. I knocked on the heavy
wooden door and got embraced by a cloud of dust and probably asbestos. I knocked
again, holding my breath, and the door moved.
‘Password, please.’ An ancient lady stood by the half-open door, dressed in black
from head to toe. The password! I had totally forgotten. The old lady sighed.
‘The name of the course, son.’
‘How to Write Your Own Eulogy,’ I said quickly, feeling stupid for shouting like I had
just scored bingo. Satisfied, the old lady guided me into a large room illuminated only
by the weak sunlight coming through the windows. A dozen or so students were
already obediently seated and ready to receive further instructions, just like a bunch
of well-trained Poodles.
‘I am your Master for today’s class,’ she said. ‘Take a seat. We will start soon.’ The
air in the classroom was thick with anticipation. The Master – she insisted on being
called that – skipped the icebreakers, ruining my chances to meet someone nice so
that the class wouldn’t be a complete waste of time. Not that my type went to a one-
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City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021How to Write Your Own Eulogy
day course on how to write eulogies, but still. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t into this
type of bullshit either. I had just been gifted the course through an Instagram
competition I had won about a game called Death Stranding.
‘By the end of today you all will be ready to die,’ the Master said confidently. The girl
beside me gasped, or maybe she farted – it was hard to tell, for the room smelled
like death already.
‘This does not mean that you die soon after the course,’ the Master continued, and a
few students exhaled in relief.
‘Perhaps you will. But death will be less scary to you because today you shall find
your purpose.’
What a load of crap, I thought, itching to get out.
The first exercise the Master gave us was to write what we wanted to do before
dying. I created quite a list then for what it proved to be not a bad exercise after all.
In my top three were:
1- Learn how to kitesurf
2- Meet someone
3- Apologise to Scott
2
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021How to Write Your Own Eulogy
The second exercise was to write down something we regretted doing and would
change if we could before we died. Easy!
1- To have supported Scott no matter what
The Master proceeded by giving us more exercises. By lunch time my hand ached
from too much writing. Food was then served: soggy carrots, a hard-boiled egg, and
steamed rice. The chef did really well in conceptualising the idea of death on a plate.
After lunch, the Master resumed, ‘You now have one hour to perform the hardest
task of the day. I want your heart, mind, and soul put into this, for now you may write
your own eulogy.’
That was a hard task indeed. For some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking of Scott and
his stupid new boyfriend, Etienne. His Instagram was full of photos of Parisian bars
and cafes, and of Etienne of course. I wondered how he pronounced his wimpy
name, and the thought of his lips made me miss him like crazy.
After his dad passed, he told me he wanted to go live overseas. He needed this, I
knew that; he was an adventurer, not a coward like me, content to live in a life full of
lies. I remember feeling like I was playing hide and seek when Scott and I were
together – if you can use this word, since we were never really together as a couple
3
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021How to Write Your Own Eulogy
– except we were the ones who were always hiding from our friends and family. The
funny thing is that I don’t even know if they were looking for us. Who were we really
hiding from? Them, or us? But back then it felt like they were indeed looking for us,
and, if they ever did find us out, we’d be both dead. Now that almost five years have
passed, I think everyone knew we fancied each other before high school even
started.
Scott hadn’t spoken to his dad since he decided to tell his old man he was gay.
Needless to say, the prick didn’t take it too well. The guy was a big fan of the whole
‘sex, drugs and rock’n’roll’ shite, let me tell you, minus the sex, most likely, since the
fella was always alone. We all knew he was on the gear even though school boys
aren’t meant to know such things. I wished I had spoken more to Scott about this.
So it came to me as no surprise when Scott packed his bags soon after we got the
news about the overdose. We were living in a tiny studio in Northbridge back then,
but it was enough for me. Why couldn’t this be good enough for him too? Why did he
always want more? I didn’t want to leave Perth, I’d been here my whole life. It wasn’t
perfect, but at least it was familiar. At the end, we had a massive fight and I told him
he was free to go to Mandurah, Canada, or to hell, for all I cared. I just wanted to
hurt him, because the mere thought of not having him was unbearable to deal with it
on my own – I needed him to feel the pain too.
Suddenly, after all this talk about death and regrets, the desire to talk to Scott got so
gigantic inside my chest that instead of writing my own eulogy, I wrote him a letter.
4
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021How to Write Your Own Eulogy
‘You may stop now.’ The Master stopped us half an hour earlier than expected, and
a few students murmured in disapproval. The Master then asked each of us to read
our lines in front of the room, as if we were the MC’s of our own funeral.
When my turn came, my armpits were damp with sweat and my hands were shaking
violently. Not because I cared about sharing about my sexuality with the whole class
– I was now very good at this – but because I thought I was about to make a fool of
myself. I read my letter, explaining I lied when I said I didn’t care if he left, because
the truth is it still hurts the fact he did. I told him I was glad he found someone and
was happy and free to be who he really is even though he was miles away from me.
‘No more hide and seek after all, huh?’ I joked. I think if life were kind enough to offer
us a second chance, maybe I’d be there with him. I still can’t believe I wrote all of
this. There were long pauses in between my sentences as I my throat felt all lumpy
and thick. Finally, I apologised to him, for the way things ended between us, not only
the romance, but the friendship too, it’s what I missed the most these days. When I
finished reading the last sentence, I caught the fart-girl smiling at me weirdly. The
whole thing was quite creepy if I’m honest.
After the readings, we were directed to a courtyard with a firepit placed on its centre.
We all formed a circle around the fire, and I feared I was being a part of a weird cult
that Netflix was sure to make a documentary about. The Master had all our
5
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021How to Write Your Own Eulogy
responses in hand, including my letter. With an abrupt gesture, she then threw
everything on fire, like one does with confetti at newlyweds, except no one was
laughing, or happy, or hopeful.
Some of the students got upset about the papers’ cremation; others were angry. I, on
the other hand, found it quite entertaining to see my wishes, regrets, and apologies
dancing in the flames, their ashes quickly ascending to the heavens even though
they probably didn’t fit there, their tiny particles being carried away by the wind and
becoming part of the air I was breathing, finally coming back to me after all. I wonder
now if a tiny particle has ever made its way to Paris. Has it?
‘Class dismissed,’ the Master shouted after everything had burned down. I left then,
having learned not much at all, for I was definitely not ready to die – at least not
before having a couple with Adam. That, and learning how to kitesurf.
6
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021[ Undefined ]
My throat constricts, my vision blackens.
1
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021[ Undefined ]
I can hear sirens. Someone has come to let me go.
2
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021[ Undefined ]
I wake up to the smell of disinfectant burning my throat. Another failure huh…
3
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021[ Undefined ]
I’ve been at the hospital for three days now. One person has come to visit me. My friend
Pastille. I wonder why he isn’t abroad still.
4
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021[ Undefined ]
Turns out, Pastille had come to visit me during the time of the… incident. He looks pretty
shaken up, but otherwise, I think he looks fine… kinda.
5
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021[ Undefined ]
I’ve been on watch for the past three weeks, and December is just about to come to an
end. My friend has been visiting non-stop lately, and it’s endearing. But he always looks
like he’s holding something back from me, and for once, I mind it. I really want to ask
about it since he’s been stressing out, but I don’t think I have to. He’s probably going to
break today.
I was right, unfortunately. My usually optimistic friend has gone through a kind of…
explosion today, lashing out at me. Telling me I’m an idiot. Asking me why I did it.
Apologising… hugging me… saying I was wanted and loved no matter what… I don’t
know how long we’ve been hugging for, but it’s long enough that he has to go once
we’re done.
6
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021[ Undefined ]
I think I’ve been crying for thirty minutes now, but the tears are starting to slow as I stare
up at the ceiling. I’ve been looking at it every night since I’ve been here, but this is the
first time I’ve been looking towards the window. There isn’t anything to see, with the city
lights glaring harshly and reflecting off the glass, but even then, it’s the most beautiful
thing I’ve seen.
7
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021[ Undefined ]
December 25th, a day for celebration. The day was quiet on my end. With no one to
hang out with often, I’m sort of just left on my own. Until Pastille went to drag me to his
place. We’ve been ripping into this one romance Christmas movie for the past two hours,
and I don’t remember the last time we were laughing like this. I really want to laugh like
this with him more often.
I’ve been starting to sew again. I forgot how much fun this was. Before, it was just
frustration and hating everything I had created. This time though, I could truly see this
time. The small creases and folds that cascade along the fabric, and the stitches that dot
the seams. How happy people look once they have their new set of pyjamas, and how
full my heart felt. I didn't realise I would miss this so much, but here I am.
8
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021[ Undefined ]
I can finally look at myself in the mirror. I still hate it, how I see myself. But I no longer
look at those scars with shame. Every cut, ever healed over scar, flashes of bruises that
previously would decorate my skin… they were proof. Evidence. They no longer were
mocking me. They were now fading into my skin, becoming a part of me. A reminder, but
it's no longer painful. I may not be completely fine right now, but I'm getting there. I'm
moving forward.
Therapy helps. I don't like the questions, but it helps. I now have a name to my condition.
Depression. I never thought it would apply to me, but all the signs were there. New
Years has long since gone, but it's only just sunk in now. I'm not fighting alone now. I
have Pastille by my side, and my family. I can finally breathe easily in my sleep, even if it
gets interrupted by an incoming nightmare. Those horrors and stresses are still there.
Some scars reopen from time to time. But now I can look up. Finally, I can rest.
9
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021[ Undefined ]
My name is Patrick Grace. I'm twenty six, and I like sewing. My best friend is Pastille
Minerva, and I live near the park, trees blooming in abundance. I go for walks there
often, and as I sit on the hill, overlooking the sunrise, I can tell that tomorrow is going to
be okay. Not good, far from perfect, but okay.
That's fine to me.
Fin
10
City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021Andy I There’s an old, tired train that snakes around the loneliest city. There are people around me. I’m stating the obvious. They feel like flesh and blood and organs. This nobody can see. I woke up like I was grabbling for life inside a womb. Like I was tearing apart lungs and veins, lungs and veins, parasitically, trying to feel for something beyond me. The walls were living, cold, white, swimming things, rippling like the disturbed surface of still water, and in the middle of them, a stiff, gaunt figure anchored to a bed with wrists that were too thin and eyes that were too dark. Here I was, I thought, and there he was beside me, and maybe in spite of me: the man, middle aged, greying beard and eyes red-tinged like he’d been crying or drinking, or both. Andy. Can she hear me? Andy. Andy… watch the way the words fall off his tongue and sound them out and breathe them in. I enjoyed the way they sounded, held gentle against the arms of his voice; vulnerable, left wide-open, and loved and beaten and earth-shattering. The man smelled of cigarette smoke and brandy. He drove back to the house not much longer after the night when the doctor had pumped his lungs full of grief—of the whole tragedy, the whole honest and terrible truth. The man had started to cry despite himself, and all that remained was left there in the disarranged, understood realm of unspoken things: the waiting. He knew. The dealing with. I watched the trees outside the window from the backseat and imagined they were watching me watching them and slowly trying to make some sense of me. The man pushed a CD in the radio and a voice was strung out, clear, despite its melancholy. Look at me, look at me, look at me. He was singing about attention. “This one was your mother’s favourite,” Paul said. I said nothing. Eventually, the city fell away. Reddish dust floated around everywhere and some clung to the man’s old jeans as he stepped out of the car. They seemed to make him heavier, and I noticed then that he walked like he’d been carrying something around with him for a long time. There was a Christmas wreath still hung up on the door, despite the bitter June chill that nipped on neck and nose and bony wrists, and the living room still smelled like cinnamon. City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021
It was a nice house, with photographs. Oakwood floors and cedar French doors and a small hole peering out under one of the wall-hung frames. White walls and blue flowers on the dinner table and wide-open windows with sheer curtains that rippled and ballooned when the wind came—like they were saying, “here I am, here I am!”—and the kid, now considerably older, used to run under them and squeal. Allie. The man’s name was Paul. Sound them out. Breathe in, and hold. The room they’d given me smelled like citrus and looked like it had gone untouched for months, years even. Allie snuck out after dinner. It was part of a routine, like how Paul would go out for a run before breakfast. How he would disappear behind the shed after he put Violet down for her midday nap and come back smelling like smoke. How Allie would go out and come back home at four, and he would ask how her day had been and she would say fine. At the table, they would exchange mediocrities; Paul would talk about work, Allie would talk about school most of the time, and some days, they would barely say anything at all. After dinner, Allie would go out again. From the furthest corner of her doorframe, I watched her turn in her black dress, fix her strawberry lipstick, consider her reflection, force a grin, prod at her waist, pick at her legs, tug at her hair. She threw herself onto a chair and sighed. Picked up her notebook and scribbled furiously for a while and then held it up to the soft light of a lampshade. She read what she’d written aloud to herself theatrically. ALLIE’S “ESSAY” The boy wrote a letter to his lost lover, and the letter began, I hope these words find you in good health, which was to say, I wish I could forget you, which was to say, don’t forget me, don’t forget me, don’t forget me. Her voice fell away as she read on, bit by bit, until it was lonelier and more lost than an empty lifeboat floating on the Pacific’s edge. She ripped out her words and balled them up, then threw them in a trashcan sitting at the corner of her room. II There’s an old, tired train that snakes around the loneliest city. I watch people file in until there’s only a few of them left on the platform. Some waiting to be passengers on the next train, some just waiting. City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021
In a good mood, Paul would tell stories about all the paintings he used to make when Allie was just a kid. He’d go out on the porch and paint whatever mood he was feeling. Sometimes, he’d paint landscapes, sometimes people walking out on the street. Paul’s most successful paintings were the ones he put no effort into. Sometimes they were shapes, sometimes anomalous objects, misshapen and by themselves and therefore—art. None of them ever sold as quickly, but they sold, nonetheless. He didn’t do it often, though. They weren’t anything to him, so devoid of the pleasure and freedom that he found in painting, but they seemed to be something to other people. He supposed it was all in the nature of us, to find meaning where there wasn’t any. Paul never painted much anymore. Every Sunday, he’d put on a blue-spotted tie and go to church. When he’d come back, he’d stare at the photographs for a while, and eventually he’d go back to the shed. One more thing: the graveyard. People called this one the Garden. I figured it was intended to be ironic. Every Sunday, after church, Paul would visit the Garden. He would walk to the same headstone and stand over it with his head bent. “You know, I never told you said about this boy in my class,” he would say, or something along those lines. “About seventeen. He meets a girl over the summer. They mess around and fall in love. But she wasn’t from here, and when the summer was over, she had to leave. The boy and the girl, they get into this huge fight over it, long distance this and long distance that, and the neighbours come calling once, and the whole town’s holding its breath because nothing this good’s happened in years, believe it or not. The girl goes away. They never speak to each other again. “But she loved him. Hell, she cried for him. And the boy grows into a man, and he’s driving back home from a service. Nothing’s really worked out for him, some ten years later, except maybe one thing. See, his wife’s singing her favourite song, but he’s so lost in his thoughts, thinking about why the things that could’ve been make him so angry, and he’s not paying attention to the road at all.” He made a strangled noise somewhere deep in his throat and then he was silent for a while. “Don’t you ever wonder?” he said, eventually. “You sit there, and you wonder… maybe if you’d tried harder or become a better person or the world had been kinder to you, things would’ve been different.” “Sometimes,” Mama whispered, instead of always. I heard a silent continuation, an unsaid but that stalked into an incomplete sentence; a quiet acceptance in the dead that the living lived to look for. And yet, and yet. There was the soft ache at the base of my throat for the same air that he shared with everyone else. There was the metamorphosis of grief, and living, and my staying the same. City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021
ANDY’S CONFESSION I watched them grieve for the comfort of being remembered. Dead and gone, stripped bare, and at the core of me— still this god-awful desire to be cared for. This is what I noticed about the Garden: The headstones were lined up row by row like soldiers waiting tolerantly for orders that they knew would never come. When the wind blew especially, the tall blades of grass seemed to sweep and reach as people passed, like beggars. In Paul’s front yard, there was a red mailbox with chipped paint, stuffed full to the brim with letters nobody had the time or energy for; Here, there was a sombre abundance of time and silence, like the bare white consequence of the gluttonous thing of living, of taking in too many colours at once. Paul seemed surprised. Allie had walked up beside him. Saltwater tears bled into her cheeks like coffee stains and the clouds that followed her breathing came out fast and short and he was tracing lop-sided circles on her back with an outstretched arm. “I’m sorry,” she admitted. It was the most honest thing she’d said in a long time. “You’re alright, kid,” he told her. “I think about them all the time,” she said. “Every second of every day, it’s just like…” “Feels like drowning. I understand. Me too.” After a while she said, “I don’t want you to be sad like this forever.” “Forever is a long time,” he said. I wasn’t sure what point he was trying to prove. He put his arm around her shoulder, and they stood there for some moments or hours. Eventually, she pulled a blue flower out of her coat pocket and placed it gently on the dirt, and Paul was turning his attention to the empty plot beside Mama’s gravestone. “Funeral’s this Sunday,” he said weakly. “I know,” said Allie. “Finally get past this purgatory.” “Guess so.” She tapped him on the back. “You’re alright, kid,” she said. He managed half a smile. They started to walk away. I called out, like I always did. Screamed until I rubbed my throat red raw. Mama wrapped her arms around me in a firm but warm embrace as I collapsed to the floor, breathing hard and heavy. City of Rockingham Creative Writing Competition 2021
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